Inflatable air mattresses and like articles

ABSTRACT

An air mattress has an upper and a lower member joined together at edge portions to form a lip. The width of the lower member is greater than that of the lower member so that the lip lies, when the mattress is inflated at the level of the upper member.

United States Patent 1 Thomas et al.

[ 1 Dec. 25, 1973 1 INFLATABLE AIR MATTRESSES AND LIKE ARTICLES [75] Inventors: Andre G. Thomas, Briant-Amilly;

Basile Fetissolf, Pannes, both of France [73] Assignee: Estabbissements Hutchinson Compagnie Nationale Du Caoutchouc, Paris, France [22] Filed: Jan. 20, 1972 [21] Appi. No.: 219,329

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Jan. 22, 1971 France 7102222 [52] US. Cl. 5/349, 5/348 R, 297/DIG. 3 [51] Int. Cl A47c 27/08, A47c 27/18 [58] Field of Search 297/218, DIG. 3;

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,048,514 8/1962 Bentele et a1 5/348 R 3,222,694 12/1965 Schick 2971219 X Primary Examiner-Casmir A. Nunberg Att0rney-Mason, Mason & Albright [57] ABSTRACT An air mattress has an upper and a lower member joined together at edge portions to form a lip. The width of the lower member is greater than that of the 1ower member so that the lip lies, when the mattress is inflated at the level of the upper member.

8 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures INFLATABLE AIR MATTRESSES AND LIKE ARTICLES BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to an air mattress.

2. Description of the Prior Art A mattress which is supplemented by internal connecting elements which communicate with two main members, in order to give these members the form of opposed swellings, or in order to give the mattress the outward shape of a cushion, is already known per se. Currently, the tendency is towards enhancing the comfort of the user of the mattress by increasing the volume of air therein. For this, it is necessary on the one hand to increase the gap between the two main members in that the connecting elements are suitably dimensioned, and on the other, to provide along the periphery of the mattress and between the two main members elements which are formed from strip or a plurality of strips of a definite contour of the two main members which give the mattress a parallelepiped form, a shape which is comparable with the conventional form of a mattress made from hair or the like. This shape of mattress is well-known to be aesthetically satisfactory.

The addition of strips which form the sides of the mattress, with regard to the manufacture of the mattress at the two outer ends, does give rise to problems insofar as the sides at the four corners must be simultaneously joined to one another and in fact pairwise and also to the upper and lower mainmembers, which necessitate the manufacture of eight three-sided pyramids, the construction of which is always difficult and time consuming.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention there is provided in an inflatable article made of impervious flexible material, a first member defining one main surface of the article and having an edge portion, and a second member defining another main surface of the article and having an edge portion, one of said first and second members having a given corresponding dimension larger than the corresponding dimension of the other member, and the edge portions of the first and second members together forming a peripheral lip which lies approximately in the plane of the member having the smaller said dimension, when the article is inflated.

Further according to the invention there is provided in an air mattress, a first member defining a surface intended for receiving a user and having an edge portion around its periphery, and a second member defining an under surface and having an edge portion around its periphery, said members being connected together at the edge portions to form a peripheral lip and the first member having a smaller width than the second member so that said lip, when the mattress is inflated, lies substantially at the level of the first member.

The mattress or other article according to the invention can in this way be manufactured and made up by direct connection of the first and second members along their periphery, the coincidence of the projecting peripheral lip with the main members of the mattress, namely with the upper main member of the mattress, imparting an appealing outer form which corresponds more or less to the form of a conventional mattress with peripheral flanks or sides.

This mattress can be made up without the incorporation of three-sided pyramids, and in fact by virtue of a further development of the invention, whereby on the outer ends of the mattress, the broadest part of the member which lies in the vicinity of the peripheral lip, is folded along each longitudinal edge and is connected to the longitudinal lip parallel with the edge, being for example secured by an adhesive, so that a fold construction is formed, which virtually compensates for the width differential of the first and second members and is adjacent to the transversely extending lip of the periphery. The two outer ends thus have a smaller height with respect to the remaining part of the mattress, in which latter case the height is fairly great. Nevertheless, the areas in which the reduced height is located, in other words the head and foot zones of the mattress, are so constructed that they do not hinder or disturb the user.

According to a further preferred feature of the mattress according to the invention, wherein, between the first and second members, there is a dividing wall which bounds the two, thus-formed separately inflatable chambers, and of which one chamber forms the body part of the mattress while the other chamber forms the pillow, the separating wall is formed] by an endless strip, the hems of selvedges of which form two marginal strips, of which one is for example secured by an adhesive on the total free inner surface of the two interconnected main members, while the other marginal strip is pleated and so connected to the marginal strip that a joint is formed half-way up the dividing wall. This arrangement allows an improvement in the outer appearance of the mattress compared with the conventional solution, wherein between the pillow part and the mattress body part, a tight joint is formed by gluing the two main members of a mattress to each other, resulting in an unpleasant interruption and discontinuity.

The manufacture and the incorporation of the dividing wall, which are explained in greater detail hereinbefore, can take place while the mattress is flat, the only difficult points of this manufacturing problem being the zone of each of the two longitudinal parts of the peripheral lip.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 shows an isometric view of one embodiment of a mattress in accordance with the invention, in the inflated state;

FIG. 2 is a vertical section on the line 22 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is an isometric fragmentary view to an enlarged scale of one of the four corner portions of the mattress of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is an isometric view of a separating wall of the mattress, which separates the body part of the mattress from the head part; and

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic fragmentary view of the mattress in the non-inflated state.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The inflatable mattress shown in FIG. 1 has two main surface members 1, 2 which are preferably of a rubbercoated fabric. Edge portions 3, 4 are superposed and connected to each other, for example by an adhesive. Because of this construction of the edge portions 3, 4 a lip 6 extends along the periphery of the mattress. A

U-shaped folded strip 7 lies inwardly of the two edge portions 3, 4, the two arms of the strip 7 being connected to the surface members 1, 2. Parallel with the longitudinal lips 6a, the two surface members 1, 2 are likewise connected to each other, by a plurality of web strips 8. These web strips 8 are preferably formed from coated fabric, form connections between the two main surface members 1, 2 and give the mattress the appearance of a cushion as shown in FIG. 1.

The width of the upper surface member 1 is smaller than that of the lower surface member 2, so that the peripheral lip 6 lies approximately at the height of the surface member 1, in other words the surface of the inflated mattress on which a person can recline.

By giving this width differential a value which is approximately equal to the height of the web strips 8 which as already explained hereinbefore are fairly high, the mattress is made capable of accommodating a fairly large column of air which makes it comfortable for reclining.

At the ends of the mattress, the width differential is reduced to zero, so that the part of the lower surface member 2 which is in the immediate vicinity of the longitudinal lip 6a of the periphery, is folded and for example secured by an adhesive to the corresponding part of the longitudinal lip 6a so that a fold 9 is formed which is adjacent to and lies below the transversely extending lip 6b of the periphery. In other words, material of the lower surface member 2 which is surplus at each edge is formed into a fold during manufacture so that the mattress when not in use lies flat. At each corner the material of the fold is secured together by an adhesive on the inwardly facing surfaces. The width of the adhered surfaces of the fold corresponding to the width of the lip 6a. This arrangement allows making-up while the corresponding part of the mattress is flat.

The surface members 1, 2 bound two chambers which correspond to a body part of the mattress and a pillow 10, which are separately inflatable through valves 11, 12 and are separated from each other by a transversely extending separating wall 13, this latter being shown in detail in FIG. 4 of the drawings. This separating wall 13 consists of a strip of coated fabric 14, the outer ends of which are connected to each other in that they form a connection 15, so that the strip 14 is an endless strip. The two hems of this strip 14 form marginal strips 16, 17 or joint edges which give a very shallow U-shaped or channel profile to the strip 14. The marginal strip 16 is glued, vulcanised or otherwise secured to the two surface members 1,2 over its entire length, while the marginal strip 17 is folded, two folds 18 being formed in the vicinity of the two longitudinal lips 6a of the periphery, so that two ends 17a, 17b are formed which are superposed and joined to each other, so that a joint 20 is formed which, together with the connection of the marginal strip 16 to the limiting surfaces, forms a tight closure across the cross-section of the mattress.

The longitudinal lips 6a of the peripheral lip 6 are so widened in the region of the separating wall that the two arms of the folded strip 7 are joined to each other at this region. In consequence, the outer marginal strip 16 of the strip 14, which forms the separating wall 13, is glued directly onto the surface members 1, 2 without any width differential being created, which would entail the risk of leakages.

The connections of the marginal strip 16 to the surface members 1, 2 and the intermediate connections of the ends 17a, 17b of the marginal strip 17 are strengthened by a reinforcement 20 having the form of an angle member, which is secured by adhesion to the strip 14 and to the limiting surfaces 1, 2. A further reinforcement is provided by a central strip 22 which forms a gusset which is connected to the adjacent parts of the endless strip 14.

As the diagrammatic view in FIG. 5 shows, the separating wall may be made up in the plane state, the part which has the width differential with respect to the lower surface member 2 having a longitudinally extending fold line 23, while the strip 14 has a transversely extending fold line 24. By virtue of the fold 9 at the corners of the mattress (FIG. 1), it is possible to manufacture the entire mattress in the flat state, resulting in a significant saving on manufacturing costs.

It lies within the scope of the invention also to manufacture inflatable dinghy bodies in the hereinbefore described manner.

What is claimed is:

1. In an inflatable article made of impervious flexible material,

a first member defining one main, generally plane, surface of the article and having an edge portion, and

a second member defining another main, generally plane, surface of the article substantially parallel to said one main surface and having an edge portion,

one of said first and second members having a given corresponding dimension larger than the corresponding dimension of the other member, and

the edge portions of the first and second members together forming a peripheral lip which lies approximately in the said plane of the member having the smaller said dimension, when the article is inflated.

2. In an air mattress,

a first member defining a generally plane surface intended for receiving a user and having an edge portion around its periphery, and

a second member defining a generally plane under surface substantially parallel to the plane surface of the first member and having an edge portion around its periphery,

said members being connected together at the edge portions to form a peripheral lip, and

the first member having a smaller width than the second member so that said lip, when the mattress is inflated, lies substantially in the plane of the first member.

3. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a folded strip having parts which are secured to the first and second members at the region of said lip.

4. A mattress according to claim 2, wherein at one comer of the mattress, that part of the second member which lies in the immediate vicinity of the lip is folded at the corresponding longitudinal edge and the fold thus formed is glued internally between lines formed by extensions of the lip of the transverse edge portion, the fold substantially compensating for the width differential between the first and second members.

5. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a dividing wall which consists of an endless strip, edge portions of which form two marginal strips one of which marginal strips is glued along its length onto the entire free inner face of the interconnected first and second ond member provided by the outer marginal strip of the endless strip, the reinforcement having two parts which are connected to one of the first and second members and with an adjacent part of the endless strip.

8. A mattress according to claim 7, wherein the connection between the two superimposed ends which are glued to the inner peripheral strip is strengthened by a strip which forms a gusset which is connected to adja cent parts of the endless strip. 

1. In an inflatable article made of impervious flexible material, a first member defining one mAin, generally plane, surface of the article and having an edge portion, and a second member defining another main, generally plane, surface of the article substantially parallel to said one main surface and having an edge portion, one of said first and second members having a given corresponding dimension larger than the corresponding dimension of the other member, and the edge portions of the first and second members together forming a peripheral lip which lies approximately in the said plane of the member having the smaller said dimension, when the article is inflated.
 2. In an air mattress, a first member defining a generally plane surface intended for receiving a user and having an edge portion around its periphery, and a second member defining a generally plane under surface substantially parallel to the plane surface of the first member and having an edge portion around its periphery, said members being connected together at the edge portions to form a peripheral lip, and the first member having a smaller width than the second member so that said lip, when the mattress is inflated, lies substantially in the plane of the first member.
 3. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a folded strip having parts which are secured to the first and second members at the region of said lip.
 4. A mattress according to claim 2, wherein at one corner of the mattress, that part of the second member which lies in the immediate vicinity of the lip is folded at the corresponding longitudinal edge and the fold thus formed is glued internally between lines formed by extensions of the lip of the transverse edge portion, the fold substantially compensating for the width differential between the first and second members.
 5. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a dividing wall which consists of an endless strip, edge portions of which form two marginal strips one of which marginal strips is glued along its length onto the entire free inner face of the interconnected first and second members, while the other marginal strip is folded and glued to the one marginal strip so that a joint is formed halfway up the dividing wall, said dividing wall serving to separate the mattress into a body part and a pillow part.
 6. A mattress according to claim 5, wherein in the region of the dividing wall, the two parts of the folded strip are joined together to reinforce the peripheral lip.
 7. A mattress according to claim 6, comprising a reinforcement for the connection between the first and second member provided by the outer marginal strip of the endless strip, the reinforcement having two parts which are connected to one of the first and second members and with an adjacent part of the endless strip.
 8. A mattress according to claim 7, wherein the connection between the two superimposed ends which are glued to the inner peripheral strip is strengthened by a strip which forms a gusset which is connected to adjacent parts of the endless strip. 